AN Ofsted report on Devizes' newest school has found some weaknesses in pupils' writing, but inspectors have praised good teaching methods.

Nursteed Community Primary School, in Brickley Lane, only opened in September 2002 and it was an unusual step for such a new school to have an Ofsted inspection.

The inspectors said pupils' standards in speaking and listening were high, and most of the teaching they saw was considered good or better.

The inspectors said the headteacher, David Sibun, provides very good leadership and management, and the behaviour of pupils was good.

However, the weaknesses identified were that standards in pupils' writing and in information and communication technology was low. They also said high attaining pupils were not always given challenging work.

Parents said they were very happy with the school.

The inspectors concluded: "This is a sound school that gives pupils a satisfactory quality of education. It has the capacity and determination to become much better."

The school was built by Persimmon Homes to serve a new housing development.

New families are moving into the completed homes and of the 150 pupils at the school, 40 of them are from different schools from all over the country.

Mr Sibun said the number of pupils arriving from different schools made it difficult to ensure each pupil raised their standards. But he believed that would be easier when the school reaches its capacity of 210 pupils by next September.

Mr Sibun said he had recognised the weaknesses identified by Ofsted and the governors too were aware of them.

He said: "The other new schools in Wiltshire had Ofsted inspections two years after opening so we were somewhat of an exception having ours after 13 months.

"The inspectors realised that it was not possible to have everything in place in the first year.

"The inspectors were pleased we had achieved the key things of addressing pupils' behaviour, the ethos of the school and that both the children and the parents are happy with the school.

"To have three quarters of the teaching to be deemed good or better is really pleasing for the staff. The Ofsted report indicates that after just one year we are well on the way to creating a very good school. As would be expected after such a short time we have some weaknesses to work on but I am very encouraged by the findings.

"Everyone associated with the school has worked very hard in the last year and we will all continue to do so as we work towards excellence."

The school has been beset by technical problems with its computer suite.

Mr Sibun said: "We have had trouble with the computer hardware and software.

"The computers were just shutting themselves down in the middle of a lesson.

"We also had a virus in September and we had to shut down the computers completely to be debugged.

"We were told after two or three days that it had been cleared but messages kept appearing on the computer screens saying there was a virus."

Mr Sibun is confident the computer problems have now been sorted out.

He and the governors are now working on an action plan to tackle the weaknesses identified by Ofsted.